


trying to forget everything that isn't you

by rememberingsunday



Category: Fall Out Boy
Genre: M/M, Peterick, They get together, its sad im sorry, patrick has cancer
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-06-06
Updated: 2014-06-06
Packaged: 2018-02-03 14:10:37
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,928
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1747442
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/rememberingsunday/pseuds/rememberingsunday
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>patrick has cancer. pete's world comes crashing down.</p>
            </blockquote>





	trying to forget everything that isn't you

**Author's Note:**

> im sorry omg  
> this is for you s.  
> i'm so sorry you have to go through this. stay strong.  
> title from 7 minutes in heaven (atavan halen) ~ fall out boy

When Patrick tells him, Pete’s watching TV.

It’s some sort of stupid infomercial about dry hair, and he’s thinking maybe he needs it, since he dyed his and now it looks kind of fluffy all the time. He’s pondering leave in conditioner when Patrick comes in.

“Hey,” Patrick nods at him. “Um. I need to talk to you.”

Patrick sounds serious, so Pete mutes the TV and focuses on his best friend. “Sure, ‘Trick. What’s up?”

He sighs heavily, running a hand through his raspberry blond hair. “I… I went to the doctor’s the other day.”

“Yeah? How’d that go? You pregnant yet?”

Patrick rolls his eyes at him. “No, Pete. I… I’m…”

“Spit it out, man.”

“I have cancer.”

Dead silence.

Pete doesn’t know what to do, what to think. His brain is spinning. Everything feels dark.

Now it’s his turn to stammer. “What… what kind?”

“Pancreas,” Patrick’s voice is quiet. “I… I don’t know, Pete, I don’t… know. The doctor says…” He takes a deep breath. “He says I have probably three to six months.”

Pete pretends that he doesn’t feel like something just ripped into his stomach. “Jesus. ‘Trick.”

Patrick just looks at him and there’s a million feelings in his eyes.

**

Pete notices how tired he looks over the next two weeks. He looks frail, gaunt, exhausted. His face is white and drawn, his eyes have stopped being green and have faded to gray. He looks sad. He looks like he’s dying.

Which, Pete supposes, he is.

And he’s trying, he really is, to shove all the thoughts he’s having out of his mind because this is about Patrick, his Patrick, and not him. But the thought of no Patrick, of his death sends fire bolts of pain through his mind. Everything turns red. He isn’t sure if he’ll be able to do it.

He doesn’t mean to, but he ends up avoiding Patrick.

It’s just, fuck. It _hurts_ to look at him, know that in a few short months, it could all be gone. No more soft pink lips curving up into a smile, no more blue green eyes alight with laughter, no more soft strawberry blonde hair, no more secret looks, no more _Patrick._

He can’t cope. So he avoids him.

Andy and Joe come over sometime in the next couple of weeks. Pete hates this, hates this so much it hurts. Why did this happen? To them, to him, to his Patrick. Why the fuck was life so unfair?

He curls up in his bed, resting his head on his knees and trying to take deep breathes. He feels panicky, scared, unsure. Patrick’s the only one who can calm him down during these. What the fuck is going to do when he’s gone?

_What is he going to do without him?_

Low sobs break out as much as Pete tries to force them back in his throat. His tears burn his skin as his body shakes, clutching the pillow and wishing this had never had happened.

**

See, Pete is absolutely _nothing_ without Patrick.

He is redeemed by simply knowing him. Patrick is good, Patrick is happy, Patrick is everything. Pete is bad, Pete is destroyed, Pete is nothing, nothing without him.

Pete loves him harder than he hates himself, and that’s how he knows he’s in trouble.

But Ashlee, Ashlee wasn’t everything. Ashlee was his puzzle piece, not everything but enough to fit with him. He loved her; he really did. Ashlee was always so flippant, always telling him exactly how it is and not caring if it hurt Pete or not. He loved her honesty; he loved her.

But she wasn’t Patrick. No one was. And Patrick was who he needed.

Ashlee was the person he married because he couldn’t have Patrick. Ashlee was good enough, but Patrick was everything.

Ashlee ended up falling for some dude that wasn’t Pete and filed a divorce. He was okay with it, in a way. Of course the first weeks weren’t, the first weeks he was punching glass and kicking things, screaming and screaming at nothing, messaging her things like “ _what did i do wrong im so sorry please” “take me back oh my god i love you ashlee please”_

She never responded.

And Patrick, well, Patrick was there always, to pick up the shattered bits of plates that had broken, to carefully put bandages on his bloody knuckles, to hold him as he sobbed like a child after his voice was raw from screaming. Patrick was always there. Pete loved Patrick.

Patrick wasn’t going to be there anymore.

The thought burns.

His fists clench, he closes his eyes, wondering again why the fuck this had to happen to his Patrick. ‘Trick.

**

One night, a month afterwards, Patrick crawls into his bed sobbing.

“Oh my god, Pete, I don’t want to die. Pete, fuck, I don’t want t-to…” his voice breaks and he fists his hands into Pete’s shirt, tears staining his cheeks.

The words break Pete’s heart. He holds him. “I know, baby, I know.”

All the breathe leaves Patrick and he gasps. “Please, please, I don’t want to. I have s-so much I want to do, like make another album a-and tour with Paramore and get a house with a picket fence, and I just c-can’t… do that anymore.”

Now Pete’s crying, too. “I’m so, so sorry, ‘Trick. I’m so sorry.”

The morning sun stains the sheets as they cry, together, and the time grows shorter.

**

Pete watches the clock sometimes.

Watches as the minutes pass, one by one, two to three, three to four. Watches as Patrick’s life ticks away. Watches as his face gets paler, he can’t move so much, the doctor instructs him to stay in bed.

Pete never leaves his bedside; only to get things for him. Soup, and sandwiches, and anything he wants. Pete’d probably catch a flight to Thailand if there was something there Patrick wanted.

So one night, when it’s about 2:17 am, Patrick wakes up and grumbles groggily, “I love you.”

And Pete knows that he’d never say that if it wasn’t like it is, if it wasn’t that Patrick is dying, if it wasn’t that they were running out of time. There’s only so much left to be together. Pete won’t let it escape.

“I love you, too, ‘Trick. Always have. Always will.”

“No,” Patrick shakes his head. “No, I _love_ you. I’m in _love with you.”_

Pete smiles, even though he feels like he’s about to cry and nods. “I know.”

Patrick nods. “Good.”

“I love you too, by the way.”

A smile cracks across his face. “I know.”

So then Pete kisses him, and it’s hard and fast and then he’s kissing Patrick’s neck, and their hips are lined up and Patrick’s sort of thrusting into him for friction, and Pete lets it happen because it’s not like he’s going to turn down this, and when both their faces are wet and Pete can’t tell which of them was crying or maybe if it was both.

**

“You fucker,” Patrick grins. His face looks hollow lately, like it’s about to crack.

It’s been three months.

Pete just smiles, trying to act like everything’s fine, like everything’s okay, like the time on the clock hasn’t ran out.

Andy and Joe are watching from the doorway. Patrick’s just taken a shower (Pete had to help him up the stairs – another fissure had cracked his heart at how hard Patrick had to try, just to put one foot in front of the other one) and his strawberry blonde hair is damp and pushed against his forehead. His green blue eyes are tired, but they look happy and his skin is drawn. He looks tired, he always, always looks tired.

“Sorry,” Pete shoots him a bright smile, showing that he is in fact not sorry at all (so maybe he had dumped whipped cream on Patrick’s strawberries (Patrick hates whipped cream) but it’s whatever). Patrick laughs and so does Pete and then Joe lets loose this quiet muffled sob and it all hits him again because any day could be the last.

Last time to hear Patrick’s laugh, last time to kiss him, last time hug him and feel the warmth he generates, last time to love Patrick. Pete’s messed up big time. He should have told him sooner, should have done it when Patrick was only sixteen and in a van and horny and Pete was twenty one and in love with him and he should have breathed it into his ear when they were sweaty and hot and insisting it was “just friends.”

Or maybe later, when Fall Out Boy actually made it, maybe he should have did it when Patrick was twenty and insecure, curling his arms around his stomach like he thought no one would like him like that, maybe Pete should have yanked those arms apart and told him exactly how beautiful he was when his head was thrown back, moaning Pete’s name, maybe he should have done it then, when they were older but still saying that it was all “friendship, just two guys helping each other out.”

Maybe he should have done it when he met Ashlee, when Patrick stopped coming over at 3 am just to fuck, when Ashlee wore his sweaters and Patrick didn’t call anymore, maybe he  should have picked up that phone and screamed it because this feeling was loud, and burning, and on fire, and soft and gentle all at the same time and even his words couldn’t describe it, no matter how hard he tried.

Maybe he should have done it any time before now, because it’s too late now. Patrick is dying. Patrick will be gone. Pete will lose him.

**

“I love you, I love you, I love you, I’m gonna miss you so fucking much.”

His tears are caustic. Patrick is sleeping. Pete is sobbing, watching his profile alined in the moonlight.

“I love you so much and I’m s-sorry and I love you and fuck, ‘Trick, fuck, you’re everything, you’re the moon and the stars and sun and the galaxies and I’m Pete Wentz and slutty and nothing but you, you’re everything. You glow, ‘Trick, and I need you to see. I’m so sorry, oh my god, I’m going to miss you, so hard.”

Patrick wakes up. He looks at Pete, tired. “Pete. Pete, you’re everything. I’m sorry for not telling you. Your lyrics are beautiful, your smile is and fuck you because I love you.”

He kisses him.

Pete closes his eyes.

**

At 1:03 pm, on June 11th, Patrick Martin Vaughn Stump passed away.

Pete was getting him a cup of tea. Mint. Boiled to practically scalding. That’s how Patrick liked his tea.

It went cold.

Patrick was lying on the bed, eyes closed, the steady fall and rising of his chest not coming. He looked lifeless.

Pete fell.

The world goes dark.

He knows he needs to call Joe and Andy. He knows that. He fumbles with the phone, taking a deep shuddery breath. He can’t allow himself to cry. Not right now.

“Hello?”

“Joe, it’s… Pete. Joe, he’s… he’s…”

Joe hangs up before Pete can get the words out. He knows.

When Joe and Andy run in, Pete’s lying on the floor. He can’t bring himself to move.

“Fuck,” Andy’s voice cracks. “Fuck.”

Joe is silent, pale, staring at Patrick, looking like a ghost. Pete feels his bones crack, feels his skin disintegrate, feels his heart break. He’s lost him. He’s gone.

( **fin)**

 


End file.
